Grade 5English Language

What your child actually learns this year

Every strand and every topic in the Grade 5 English Language curriculum, exactly as the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development sets it out. Written so you can read it in one sitting, without a teaching qualification.

1Listening and SpeakingThirteen topics on sounds, words and speaking out loud: vowel sounds, polite expressions, proverbs, choral verse, interactive listening and making a speech.13 topics·102 questions

  • Listening Comprehension

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Listening Comprehension: Dialogue)

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Polite Words Phrases and Expressions)

    5 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary

    5 skills

  • Listening Comprehension (Sounds, Adjectives)

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Stress, Intonation)

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Interactive Listening)

    5 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Oral Narrative Featuring Proverbs and Sayings)

    4 skills

  • Speaking Fluency: pronunciation

    3 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary: Interactive Listening (Choral verse; Narrative in Dialogue Format (Conversation Narrative))

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Listening Fluency)

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Speaking Fluency (Content from other Learning areas); Making a Speech)

    4 skills

  • Pronunciation and Vocabulary (Intensive Listening (Dialogue containing similes))

    4 skills
2ReadingThirteen topics covering both kinds of reading, the close kind and the wide kind: comprehension of factual, descriptive and fictional texts, poems, songs and tongue twisters, reading fluency, and class readers.13 topics·104 questions

  • Extensive Reading (Reference Materials)

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading (Oral Narrative (about 400 words); Poem of about 5 Stanzas)

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading: (Narrative of about 400 words)

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading: Comprehension (Visuals)

    4 skills

  • Extensive Reading: Fiction and Non Fiction Materials

    5 skills

  • Intensive Reading (Comprehension Dialogues)

    3 skills

  • Extensive Reading (Fiction and Non-Fiction Texts (1000-1250 words); Poems (not more than 5 stanzas))

    3 skills

  • Fluency in Reading (Texts of about 400 words)

    3 skills

  • Intensive Reading (Descriptive Fictional or Non-Fictional Texts (about 400 words))

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading (Factual Texts of about 400 Words)

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading (Comprehension strategies)

    4 skills

  • Intensive Reading (Poems, Songs and Tongue Twisters)

    4 skills

  • Extensive Reading (Variety of texts such as Newspapers, magazines, class readers and poems)

    4 skills
3Grammar in UseThirteen topics and the strand that carries the rules: nouns, adjectives and their order, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, interrogatives, future tense, question tags and double imperatives.13 topics·97 questions

  • Word Class: Demonstrative Determiners (This, these, that, those)

    3 skills

  • Word Class: Collective Nouns/ Reflexive Pronouns

    2 skills

  • Language Pattern (Use of too…to/for; Use of Must/Should with an Adverb/ Adverbial)

    3 skills

  • Word Class: Possessive Pronouns

    3 skills

  • Word Class: Adjectives (Comparatives and superlative forms of (regular/irregular) adjectives; Order of Adjectives)

    3 skills

  • Word Class: Determiners: Quantifiers

    3 skills

  • Tense (Future Time using will/shall)

    3 skills

  • Sentences (Use of Double Imperatives; Question Tags on the ‘Verb to be’)

    3 skills

  • Word Class: Adverbs (Adverbs; Use of could, would and how many; How many could/would)

    4 skills

  • Word Class: Conjunctions

    3 skills

  • Use of Interrogatives

    3 skills

  • Word Class: Nouns (Nouns (which occur in singular or plural))

    3 skills

  • Word Class: Prepositions

    3 skills
4WritingThirteen topics from the mechanics upwards: punctuation and spelling, then functional writing such as a diary, and creative writing of narrative, descriptive and pictorial compositions of 120 to 160 words.13 topics·97 questions

  • Functional Writing: Filling Forms

    3 skills

  • Creative Writing: Open ended Compositions

    3 skills

  • Mechanics of Writing: Handwriting (Joined/ (cursive script))

    3 skills

  • Functional Writing: Friendly Letter (A Reply to a friendly letter)

    3 skills

  • Creative Writing: Narrative Compositions

    4 skills

  • Creative Writing: Pictorial Composition

    3 skills

  • Mechanics of Writing: Punctuation (Commas; Double Quotation Marks)

    3 skills

  • Creative Writing (Narrative Composition (120 -160 words); Similes and Proverbs)

    4 skills

  • Mechanics of Writing: Punctuation Marks (Apostrophe; Exclamation Mark)

    3 skills

  • Creative Writing: Descriptive Composition (120 -160 words)

    4 skills

  • Spelling (Commonly Misspelt Words; Homophones; Homonyms)

    3 skills

  • Functional Writing: Diary (Appointment Diary; Journal (3 days))

    3 skills

  • Spelling (Homophones; Words with double consonants; Words with double vowels)

    5 skills

Why you can take this page at face value

Straight from the KICD design

The strands and topics on this page are the Grade 5 English Language curriculum as the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development sets it out. We have not chosen them, reordered them or left any out.

Nothing here is a sample

Every topic below is covered in our question bank, not a selection of the easy ones. The numbers beside each strand are the real counts.

Marked by a machine, written by a person

Each question carries its full working and a note on why every wrong answer is wrong, so a child who misses one is told what they were thinking, not just that they were wrong.

See what your child can already do

Twenty questions, free, across any of these topics, with the complete weekly report that tells you which are solid and which are slipping. No card, nothing renews by itself.

Start free — 20 questions 🚀

400 Grade 5 English Language questions in the bank, covering every topic on this page.